For the past six years we’ve made Grand Challenges Explorations grants to fund scientific work on unproven ideas that could potentially be ground breaking in solving major global health and development problems. Today, we are announcing the Phase I winners
in the 12th round of these innovative grants and three phase II winners.

On a recent grantee visit to a high-tech startup company that makes vaccine refrigerators in rural Wales, it struck me that almost all of our work in immunization—and maybe even all of our work in global development and health—comes together in the cold
chain for vaccines, specifically the refrigerator. I know – an audacious statement. Where’s the data? Let me explain.

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Passionate women and girls are fighting to create a more positive future. From heads of state to midwives in remote villages, they are refusing to accept the status quo, refusing to keep quiet and refusing to accept inequality.

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"Our desire to bring every good thing to our children is a force for good throughout the world. It’s what propels societies forward." —Melinda Gates

The Global Fund has helped to deliver more than 190 million bed nets to protect families from malaria.

"The world faces a clear choice. If we invest relatively small amounts, many more poor farmers will be able to feed their families." —Bill Gates, 2012 Annual Letter

"When it come to global health, Bill and I are optimists—but we're impatient optimists. Tremendous progress is being made. But there is still so much we're impatient to see done." —Melinda French Gates

In Senegal, 80% of households now have a bed net, helping the number of malaria cases there drop 50% in a single year.